


Fatigue

by navree



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Multi, and it gave me emotions, he looked really tired on sitroom and 360 ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-10 03:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15282654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navree/pseuds/navree
Summary: "Do you want a drink?" Will you accept my olive branch?Who to talk to about the man you love? Why, the girl he loves of course! (he, meanwhile, loves the both of you)





	Fatigue

**Author's Note:**

> listen I know it's a short lil something but it's something ok  
> as always, comments (either positive or constructive) are always welcome and much appreciated!

Jake's late at the office. It's already dark, and he should be heading home. He doesn't have any panel appearances to do or anything. He doesn't have a massive load that requires him to spend extra time at the office. 

And even if he wants to watch Anderson Cooper 360º, it's not like his house doesn't have CNN. And it's not like Jen isn't aware of any reasons why he'd want to watch the news, or other shows. And it's not some secret, dirty thing, watching a coworker's show, supporting his network and the fellows of his profession.

But it feels kinder to do this in the privacy of his own office. 

Jim looks tired. Not that it's necessarily a bad look on him, but he looks exhausted. The circles under his eyes are far too dark, and his face is just a touch too pale. Which is natural, time zones are a thing and there's a big one between D.C. and London. 

But whenever he sees Jim look remotely less than OK, he, like a fool, thinks back to the one time he didn't religiously clock every change in Jim's face, and well, look how that ended. So now he's hyper vigilant. 

Should Jake listen to the voice in his head, he might understand that it could be too little too late. 

He's lost in his own thoughts when there's a knock on his door. When Jake looks up, he's expecting a lot of people. Maybe Dana, or Jeff. Maybe even Jen, wondering why he isn't home yet, thought that's not her thing. 

He doesn't expect Liz Landers, fidgeting with her fingers, in his doorway. 

"Hey." She gives him an awkward little wave. "Can I come in?" Jake nods, somewhat dumbfounded. She enters, closes the door behind her. 

It's not that he and Liz have a bad relationship. They just don't have one. They're coworkers, only just. They work separate beats. There's about twenty years of age difference between them. She's Jim's girlfriend. And he's Jim's -

He's Jim's. 

And OK, yes, sometimes he thinks that he doesn't particularly like Liz, because he's jealous and hates that he's jealous. But still. 

"Has he called you, by any chance?" Liz says it like it's the most natural thing in the world, Jim calling him. Jake wants to laugh. Jim doesn't call him just to chat, only when he wants something. Well, one thing usually. But definitely not just to chitchat, the way he might with a significant other, or even with a loved one. 

"No." Jake leans back in his chair. "Why?" 

"I was just watching Anderson and he looked-"

"Glad to know I wasn't the only one thinking like that." Jake says it way too quickly, before she's even finished speaking, but he's relieved that this time he wasn't just acting like an idiot. Liz doesn't seem all that surprised, just nods. "I think he's just tired. Timezones."

"Timezones," Liz repeats, like an agreement. They look at each other for a moment.

 

 

 

She's pretty. She's very pretty, if you're attracted to small blondes. If you looked at Jake's wife, it'd be acceptable to assume the person he fantasizes about is Liz, not Jim. But that's not true. 

It's been Jim, Jim since 2013, Jim for five years, Jim for almost half a decade now. 

But Jim's never wanted him back in quite the same way, never with as much intensity or hope, or if he has, it faded before Jake really noticed it. And he's got Liz now, who's so very pretty, and he lied before, he has thought about Liz, sometimes, about her and Jim in bed together. 

About Jim's head between her legs. About Jim's lips pressed against her neck. About the sounds Jim makes when he's inside her. Is it the same as when he's with Jake? When he's got his fingers curled around him, a hand fisted in his hair? Is it as different as it is for Jake? 

Is it _better_?

Sometimes Jake thinks that these are the kind of thoughts he should be chided for. It's something to be chided, right? That he only thinks about her in the context of Jim? Maybe if he knew her as anything other than Jim's girlfriend, but he doesn't, not really. 

She's just the girl who threw a wrench in five years of heartache and longing and it's really not Liz's fault that she stumbled into this story but that's how Jake sees her. He just can't help it.

 

 

 

Jake breaks the staring contest off first. Liz clears her throat. 

"Well, thanks anyway." They might as well have been talking about restaurant recommendations. "Have a nice night." 

"Elizabeth." There's something he knows and something he doesn't. He knows that he's only gonna call her Elizabeth until they establish some kind of relationship, because using nicknames willy-nilly has always felt weird to him. He doesn't know why he's stopping her from leaving.

"Yeah?" She seems as surprised by him as he is by himself. Get used to it Liz, he's a mess of confusion and contradictions, has been for a while now. 

"I, ah." Jake drums his fingers against his desk. "Do you want a drink?" _Will you accept my olive branch?_ Why he's offering one, he can't begin to figure out. Maybe it's because he's tired. Maybe it's because he's lonely. Maybe it's because he misses Jim and she's the closest thing. Maybe it's because she might be the only one who gets it, that's why she came in her, right? 

"At, like, a bar?" Liz's eyebrows jump up. 

"I got sent bourbon by a neighbor sometime last week." For some segment that's no doubt bolstered his reputation even higher. He'll pretend he doesn't enjoy it. "Haven't cracked it open yet." She chuckles slightly. 

"Why is bourbon always the gift of choice?" Jake shrugs and leans back in his chair. Liz nods, sits in the chair across his desk. "Sure, why not. I could use a drink." Jake pours her one, slides the glass across to her. "Do people ever send you food?" Jake shakes his head. 

"Food spoils, I think." He takes a sip. "Alcohol doesn't, nor do novelty ties or toy plushies." That's why he's got a few ties with things like daisies on them. That's why he has a stuffed raccoon on his shelf, gathering dust next to a drawing Jack made him a few years ago at school. 

It'll teach him to tweet without thinking of the ramifications. 

"My mom used to send me cookies in care packages when I was at sleep away camp," Liz offers. 

"Well, if my mother started sending me cookies out of the blue, it'd be off the charts passive aggressive and I'd spend weeks wracking my brain to figure out what I did wrong." Liz smiles into her drink. 

OK fine, Jake can see it. He can see what made Jim...fall for her, ugh. Let him still be petty, he hasn't even had a full glass yet. He needs time to get from jealousy to generosity, and this entire saga's only just begun

"I'll admit to not being a connoisseur on what makes good bourbon and what doesn't, but this tastes all right." Liz takes a large gulp, tilts her head back slightly as she does so. They lapse into a companionable silence for the briefest of moments. 

Jake tries to remember the last time he just had a nice, shared drink in his office with somebody. 

 

 

 

He can actually remember it with crystal clarity, no trying involved, because it was Jim. Soon after the inauguration. 

Jim flops into his office, settles himself on his couch. Jake watches him do so, thoroughly nonplussed. It's not an uncommon sight, Jim making himself at home with no regard for what someone else might feel about it. And Jake doesn't mind watching Jim familiarize himself with these surroundings. 

"Easy briefing today?" he asks dryly. Jim rolls his head in his direction. 

"Sean didn't tell us this was the biggest travel ban in the history of travel bans, _period_ , so I'm counting it as a success." Jim does a good job of nailing Sean's particular cadence. It's been a long day, and Jake scoffs. 

Jim's gaze meets his. 

They start laughing, very suddenly, the kind of gasping laugh you do when you need a release and just can't control yourself. It takes a while to calm down, with Jim wiping at the corners of his eyes, with a wide grin still on his face. Bright, brilliant, and all too easily snuffed out. But God is it nice to see it again. 

"Period." Jake chokes back the last of his laugh, pours himself a drink from some bottle of something that someone sent him for some reason. Jim beckons for one of his own. 

When his kids do it, Jake tells them he's not their butler. When Jim does it, Jake just follows suit. This is pathetic right? This counts as pathetic? 

"I used to like Sean, you know." Jim takes a long sip of his drink, makes a slight face. "Well, sort of. I didn't want to wring his neck as much as I do." Jake doesn't speak for a minute. "Now I fucking hate them all." 

"I couldn't tell," Jake mutters sarcastically. Jim's eyebrows dance. Christ he's handsome. 

It brings back memories of their last time together, in this office, Jim's hands on him, hard enough to leave bruises if they both weren't painstakingly careful about this. 

"You're a cartoonist, not a comedian." Jim smiles at him. Jake smiles back

 

 

 

"I don't suppose he still gets these kinds of gifts." Liz shakes her head, swirls the bourbon in her glass for a bit.

"Not really, as far as I know." Jake tries not to be too obvious in breathing a sigh of relief. Thank God. Watching Jim destroy himself has never been easy, it's nice to see that it might be coming to an end. 

"That's good." Liz tilts her head at him. "I'd heard he was trying to cut back." She shrugs, like her boyfriend's drinking habits are news to her.

"Maybe, he doesn't really talk to me about stuff like that." He can't help but make an appreciative hum. Jim, not talking? Not letting anyone know what he thinks? Almost allergic to proper communication? Yeah, sounds about right. At least there's a reason why he doesn't give any of this stuff o Liz.

The only reason Jake knows half of what goes on in Jim's head is that he's pathetically tuned to him, can't shake Jim out of his system no matter how hard he might try. 

"Well. He's like that." Liz scoffs slightly, takes a sip. 

"Just wish I knew why is all." For a moment all Jake can do is blink at her, stunned. He'd thought they were on the same page about this. Not that he'd somehow flipped ahead in the script, gotten to know a bit more of the story. 

"Wait. You really don't know why?" He doesn't mean to sound so surprised, but he does. Liz narrows her eyes at him. 

"Nope." She pops the _p_ sound. What Jake's about to say feels like he's pushing nails out of his mouth, but it's something that should be said. Because it does feel ridiculous that this needs to be said, that she needs to be convinced, or even told. 

"He loves you." It's unfathomable to Jake that this might be the first time Liz has heard it. But her eyebrows jump slightly, so apparently it is. "It's true. He loves you, and he thinks that if he talks to you and shows you the ugly stuff, you'll leave. Which he doesn't want, because he loves you, and he's scared of fucking this up and losing you." 

Forget nails, this is glass shards. Just because he and Liz are having a kind of bizarre rapprochement doesn't mean it's suddenly easier for him to tell her something like this. It's private and personal and somehow he's the emissary meant to resolve the lack of communication between  ~~the man he loves~~ Jim and ~~the woman the man he loves is in love~~ with Liz. 

It's not a role he wants. 

Liz takes a sip of her drink, plays her fingers along the rim of her glass. "Did he tell you this?" 

"No." Jim doesn't really tell him anything. 

"So how do you know?" Objectively, he hates this conversation. He doesn't want to talk about Jim and love. Because before he saw Jim with Liz he hadn't even realized Jim was capable of feeling love anymore. Because he thinks he loves Jim but he's almost convinced Jim doesn't love him. Because Jim loves Liz and even if he hasn't told Jake any of this, Jake knows him well enough to know that he's scared he's going to ruin her by loving her too much. 

And because he's never let himself realize how young and quite possibly out of her depth Liz is when it comes to this mess, until now, with her avoiding his eyes and looking vulnerable. He spends most of his time jealous of her. Not trying to empathize with her. 

That has to be a moral failing of some kind.

"Just trust me." Hey, girl with a boyfriend, trust me, the guy screwing your boyfriend. What a totally normal thing to ask! God when did they all get so fucked up? "He loves you." Liz nods mutely. "Do you?" 

"Do I love him?" Now she looks at him. And gives her answer. 

There's a resigned quirk in the smile she gives him, which is all that he really needs. Jake knows it because he recognizes it. It's the same weird tic he sometimes got when Jim used to show up on The Lead. The one that says _Of course I love him, that's the inevitable finish line_. That's been a refrain in his head for a while, and apparently Liz gets it. 

"Cheers," Jake says, tone bone dry. Liz lifts her glass to meet his. 

"Cheers indeed." The clink is too loud in the quiet.

There's no real ending to this. No resolution. It's not a movie, where they come to an understanding and share a compassionate hug, friends united by the emotions they share. They finish the drinks in silence, and Liz stands, hands him back the glass, walks out the door. In a half hour he will too, back to his wife and his two children. 

And then the day just. It just ends. 


End file.
